WHAT IS BEING IN CHARGE?

 What Does It Mean to Be in Charge?

What does it mean to be the person in charge in a classroom?

I like to think of teachers as leaders of small communities who bear responsibilities as overwhelming as those which face leaders of vast nation-states. To teachers falls the task of creating a classroom environment that promotes growth, learning, and understanding for all. Yet that's not a job one person can manage alone. Fortunately, every classroom has plenty of potential help: the students. The problem is marshaling the kids to the cause. Ultimately, teachers can lead only where students are willing to go. Like the answer to the riddle about how many psychiatrists it takes to change a light bulb—the light bulb has to want to change—students have to want to be thoughtful. Classroom leadership depends on evoking willing participation from the kids in the room.

There's also a context beyond the classroom that clamors for attention. Schools today have as much in common with jails and factories as with town meetings. While striving to bring out the best in themselves and their students, teachers are also preservers of the status quo, that natural enemy to true inquiry. Given the structure of schools, standardized testing, the push for teacher accountability, and the culture of kids, this is a basic fact of life. True understanding may require an emotional wrench, but a chaotic classroom is inimical to teaching and learning. Exceptions are rare.

How to create a just-right classroom environment is a problem with many correct solutions. Just as leaders in the larger world have a variety of leadership styles, each with strengths and shortcomings, so teachers in schools use a variety of approaches. There's a pool of techniques for structuring classrooms that teachers can draw on to form their own repertoires, but it isn't possible—or desirable—to declare one model best for all. Leadership style, after all, reflects something basic about a person's nature. The same is true for the kids. Students are individuals with their own histories and perspectives. Approaches that work well with some youngsters may not work nearly as well with others. Being in there with the kids, it seems to me, helps teachers figure out their own best way of being in a classroom.

Hilary Coles, in her third year of teaching, often feels she still has a lot to learn. She works at a large, urban, midwestern high school. Hilary generally enjoys her 10th graders, all of whom seem like good kids to her; something about their earnestness appeals to Hilary. She likes being around young adults who have most of their lives before them and know it. (She doesn't like it that some drive new, fast cars, while others don't have enough spending money.) In the class we are about to watch—28 students in Modern European History—several of Hilary's students are physically present, but otherwise engaged. These are the ones who will grab our attention.

Students in Class

Robert's Aching Neck

Robert is tired. He lowers his head to his desk as soon as Hilary quiets the class, putting his arms beneath his head for comfort and cleanliness. But when he sees Heather looking directly at him, he feels inspired. He lets his arms dangle by his sides, creating a dramatically impressive tableau. Heather smiles, but quickly looks away. Ms. Coles has begun to lecture, and Heather wants a complete set of notes. Her boyfriend, Steven, depends on her to keep his lecture notes up to date. Unfortunately for Robert's neck, Robert is now caught in this uncomfortable and awkward position by the demands of appearance and his need for coolness before Heather.

Despite the dramatic scene, Hilary does not notice Robert for several minutes. Classrooms are full of varied visual stimuli that can distract a teacher. Just as Hilary is beginning point three of her theoretical overview of capitalism (sections 7B and 7C of the state's learning standards for Modern European History), Robert's pose somehow forces itself into her consciousness. She responds immediately, redirecting her steps toward Robert's desk, being careful not to change her pace or the tone of her voice. When she reaches Robert, she puts a hand softly on his shoulder, still acting as if nothing is particularly amiss. Hilary makes no attempt to hide her actions. Everyone can see the mild reprimand clearly.

How does Robert respond? Feeling the hand on his shoulder and hearing Ms. Coles's voice, he lifts his head from his desk, grateful for a way out of what had become a physically uncomfortable position. His neck aches. He feigns a half yawn, as if he doesn't care, and opens his notebook. Hilary walks on without further ado, continuing to lecture.

The Land of Fantasy

Hilary sees that Maria is reading Gabriel García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude. Of course, she shouldn't be reading a novel in class! Maria has been reading bits and pieces of it in class for more than a week. Once she asked Hilary if she'd read Márquez. Maria is curious to learn whether Márquez's fiction is too fanciful for Hilary's taste.

Earlier in the period, Hilary had walked by and closed the book. She is teaching European history and had worked hard on her lecture the previous night, harder still on the original version the year before. The kids must know “basic economic systems” for statewide tests; Hilary has no choice. And other students can see Maria reading the novel. It's a dangerous precedent. It evokes an atmosphere opposite from the one Hilary is trying to establish. The raw truth, however, is that Maria can read her novel and retain Hilary's main points about capitalism. When it's time to write the essay, Maria will do as well as anyone in class.

SIRIKWA YASINTA THADEY